The Wrong Car

Samantha Josephson was twenty-one, a University of South Carolina senior from Robbinsville, New Jersey, weeks from graduating, with a full scholarship to Drexel’s law school waiting. Early on March 29, 2019, she left the Bird Dog bar in Columbia’s Five Points district on her own and opened her phone to look for the Uber she had ordered.

A black Chevrolet Impala was waiting at the curb, and she got into the back seat. The car belonged to Nathaniel David Rowland, who had nothing to do with the app, and its child safety locks were engaged, so the rear doors would not open from inside. He drove her about sixty-five miles into rural Clarendon County and stabbed her roughly 120 times. Turkey hunters found her that afternoon in woods near New Zion, about a mile from Rowland’s parents’ home. Police spotted the Impala back in Five Points the following night; Rowland ran, was caught, and officers found her blood and her phone in the car.

A jury convicted him of murder, kidnapping, and a weapons charge on July 27, 2021, after roughly an hour of deliberation, and Judge Clifton Newman sentenced him to life without parole. South Carolina had already passed the Samantha L. Josephson Ridesharing Safety Act in 2019, requiring front license plates on rideshare cars. The state Court of Appeals upheld his convictions on August 21, 2024.